Larry Lard wrote:
wrote:
John Rowland wrote:
John B wrote:
wrote:

BARONS COURT / Barons Court (not so much an anomaly as simply both
being wrong, with the absence of an apostrophe)
PARSONS GREEN / Parsons Green (ditto)

"To court" is a verb, and barons is a legitimate plural...having
"green" as a verb would be pushing it a bit, though.

You can write "persons unknown" or "malice aforethought", so why not
"parsons green"?

Because the green is that of the parson, i.e. it belongs (or
historically did) belong to the parson whose church is on its Western
side, hence a possessive noun, requiring an apostrophe.

Methinks Mr Rowland might be aware of that.

"Persons unknown" is not a possessive noun, i.e. the "unknown" is not
the property of the "persons", The word "unknown" in this context is an
adjective, simply describing the type of persons, i.e. "unknown
persons".

Indeed it is less than a month since AWAD (www.wordsmith.org) had
'postpositive adjectives' as its weekly theme, giving us: manque,
redux, redivivus, emeritus, and regnant.

I'm not sure what maliceaforethought (apart from being a rather ugly
combination and probably gramatically wrong, but accepted through
common usage) has to do with it!

It's two words - malice aforethought - another postpositive adjectival
use.

Poetically one can put any adjective one pleases postpositively, eg "It
came upon a midnight clear"

--
Larry Lard
Replies to group please

Sorry, Larry it was a mistake on my part to make malice aforethought
into one word! As a lawyer, I put forward the excuse that I have only
ever seen the word aforthought preceded by the word malice, and had
subconsciously conjoined them into one word!

Here's another thread, then, for the literary-minded members of this
forum: what other words have you ever seen preceding the word
aforethought?

Love aforethought?
Wonder aforethought?
Spite aforethought?
Awe aforethought?

Answers please.....

Marc.